Jones Stephens J44050 Plumbing-Tools, 1/2-Inch, White

This tool did exactly what I needed, allowing me the separate the 3-inch PVC pipe connection and use a different fitting. It worked fine in my 20V cordless drill on low speed. It cut surprisingly well. Just take your time and you'll be fine. No need for excessive force--just let the tool do the cutting. Check the depth of your cut as you get close to having the old fitting completely removed. I removed the 3-inch fitting in about 5 minutes. The resulting opening was just the right size for the new fitting. A professional would probably want a higher grade of this tool, but for a single use or the DIYer, this is the ticket.

This is for the 3" cutter. In to my 3rd and final bath remodel in this 1970s house. Each of the first two needed to have the sub floor around the toilet replaced as it had become spongy over the years. Simple enough, and I went a step further each time. I installed tile, which results in a 1/2" or so build up from the linoleum-directly-over-the-sub-floor crap that was there. I'd cut back the 3" ABS pipe and install new pipe and fittings with a new stainless steel toilet flange. Worked perfect and put the flange at the proper grade, as in above the tile, not below grade with the tile built up around it. This last one had a surprise for me. Since I "knew" what to expect, I had already cut the old toilet flange off before cutting the sub floor open. Oooops. This one had a Y fitting for the nearby shower drain taking up what should have been straight pipe giving me enough room to cut back and fit replacements as before. No room to cut back. Screwed. Worse case? I would have to rip out more sub floor, walls, some of an adjacent bath already remodeled and main drain line from the second floor to the basement. Looked online and found some tips to try and bust the pieces apart with a sharp chisel. Nope. Don't even bother. Saw this 3" socket saver and decided to give a try. Glad I did. You definitely need a good 1/2" drill. Mine is 9.5A and worked well. Bored right through the old pipe leaving a snug fit in the socket for a new piece of 3" ABS. Perfect cut? No. Little rough, but cleaned it up with some 100 grit. Slobbed a bit of extra glue in the socket and on the pipe. Sold joint that will never be a problem. In fact, I don't think I'd hesitate to cut this same fitting again if the need ever presented. Easy to do and saved me a ton of money and extra work. Recommended.

My review is for the 3-inch socket saver. I imagine that, due to the nature of the product, the difficulty of getting the cut precise increases as you increase the size (ie: ½-inch being easiest and 4-inch being hardest). I bought this because the toilet closet flange broke to the point where it could not be fixed with metal rings or other types of easy fixes. When trying to remove the closet flange from the 3-inch drain pipe via hammer and chisel, I was unable to properly remove the flange from the pipe. I found that there was no sufficient length of 3-inch pipe to cement a new connector to. From the toilet, it went: Flange ( a connector) > 90° elbow ( a connector) > 45° elbow (a connector) > Wye (a connector). So without cutting out the Wye and re-coupling several pipes and connections (sawing up more floor, more headache, etc.), I looked into my options. I tried melting the 90° elbow out of one of the connections with a heat gun. That worked, but it deformed/expanded the 3-inch pipe to the point where I couldn't get a reliable connection. That's when I found this and it answered the big question: how do I inexpensively get a fresh connection to cement a new pipe/connector to?Well, I successfully drilled out the pipe that was cemented in the 45° elbow. However, it is very tough to keep this perfectly straight the whole way through and when you aren't straight, you get minor ridges in the connector which may prevent a secure bond. One wish for this product would be a deeper guide. The guide is basically two welded washers. If it was deeper, it would be much less prone to wobbling. I wasn't confident that, with the cut ridges, I would have a reliable connection, so I want to both big box hardware stores to see what I could do to give me piece of mind. The Fernco rubber couplings seemed like the right choice, but they were only pipe-to-pipe connections in store and I needed connector to connector. It turns out that Fernco makes them, but they aren't readily available locally. I got one online, cemented my PVC connections and tightened the Fernco. Now I have confidence that if the pipe weld fails, the Fernco will back it up.The GOOD:• This can be a headache saver for someone that doesn't want to rip up floor/walls/ceilings to replace PVC pipe. PVC is cheap but getting to it can be expensive.• The build quality is solid and is priced well.The BAD (or iffy):• Difficult to keep perfectly aligned through the entirety of the cut.My recommendation• Get this and get a Fernco 3 in. x 3 in. PVC Plastic Socket to Plastic Socket Flexible Coupling - Model # 1060-3 and you will have a reliable PVC connector to connector bond. Also, use a corded drill with some heft.

Works surprisingly well with zero negative problems. Just a suggestion to users, rotate between forward then reverse several times while cutting to achieve the best and fastest cuts.

I had 2 options: 1) Somehow save the 90 degree fitting OR 2) Replace the whole assembly.Watched a few videos and tried the heat method. After hours of heating and tugging, doing a good number on the fitting I wanted to save, I gave up. Learned the hard way that, while it may work for smaller pipes, heating method doesn't work for thick, 3" sewer pipe.Luckily found this attachment, and was able to save a pretty brutalized fitting. Drilled for a couple minutes and had a workable fitting that I can fit another 3" pipe into.I can finally use my toilet again!Pros:- Shaved out the inner pipe. It works!- Relatively cheap- Didn't need to call a plumberCons:- Need a decent drill with a 1/2" Bit... Socket... thing...- Not the cleanest fitting interior (Although most damage was no the fault of the tool)

Works great....take your time and take it slow....

I had a very tight situation with moving a toilet over by a few inches in a house on a crawl space, and really didn't want to have to cut out and replace three additional fittings and a couple short lengths of pipe to make it work. This tool saved me a LOT of work and headache. It leaves a bit of a rough surface inside the remaining fitting, but I slathered plenty of PVC cement inside and it worked like a charm.

I was a bit worried that the socket saver would not work after reading some of the reviews that said it was not adequate. I watched a couple of videos online on exactly how to do it and if you follow those steps it works great. Make sure the inserted pipe is sawed flush with the fitting.

You might want to check the cut on a test pipe before doing the real job. I found it to be a little too big (Australian sewerage pipes) so I had to grind 2mm off the cutting blade otherwise it would not have left enough material on the female joiner to provide the new joint with any real strength. It didn't take long to get it to the right size and then it worked brilliantly!!!

effective

This product is exactly as described. It worked well on 3” system 15. I don’t know how long it will last but for the price it’s worth it. I would recommend it

Incredible how rare these tools are, I've been to any store appropriate for plumbing (any and all suppliers) and until very recently I've only seen one for 1.5" pipe and it was like $150, I certainly won't use it often enough to need to spend that, but a 3" in commercial it's already cheaper than the coupling I'm reusing.For some reason it's also very hard to get on amazon, I wanted other sizes but they won't ship to my location (in a major city!), anyway the couple of times I've used this it was perfect